The creation of our opening title sequence

About a week now me and my group and done a lot of progress in our work of developing a thriller. We had one idea each and we discussed every idea truly and also looked at what ways it was a strong idea and why it wasn’t. After two days of planning and trying to get a structure of our idea we were ready to develop our initial idea and start to do all the planning, story boarding and so on. Our idea for the opening title sequence is that: it’s a boy and a girl cut between in mix of match-shots and so on, the girls is suppose to be aggressive and is showing the feeling of revenge while she is tearing apart photos of her and the boy showing an end of a relationship. When it cuts to the boy he’s suppose to be calm and is really the opposite and a big part of this is only shot in close-ups not showing too much of the characters more the details and so on. It end the boy lights a cigarette and a match cut is done showing her lighting a photo and watching it burn seeing that the boys face on the picture is scrapped or cut out.

In my group we have started to do the story boarding, props list, actors list and so on. Things such as music  have also been discussed and we come a great way for only a few days even though we are only in the beginning of the creation of the opening sequences.

Before we even came up with the idea of our thriller we all had four different ideas each. All of my four ideas were of the same kind of plot/story but with four different ways of doing it and so on. So my basic idea was that there was this man doing his weekly things in a house and we see him reading the newspaper, he then cuts out an article which he is very precise about he then takes the article down to a basement and puts it on the wall either among other pictures and articles involving death, rape or so on. To this idea I then had several different was of doing it, from a point of view or extreme close-up on hands and so on. To the end of the story there were also different ways of doing it depending on how much you wanted to revel and so on.
After discussing all of our ideas we found my ideas as a strong one and thought that it could be kind of the main story but through my original idea we mixed it with all of the thoughts and ideas in the group which finally lead us to the idea that I told about above.


The idea that was finally approved by the group was brought to the studio boss for approval, if the making of the sequence would be doable and so on. This gave us as a group good and useful feedback which we took forward and in some ways also developed our idea. It might seem that coming up with an idea might not be hard but there are so many details that has to be considered which also changes the situation when talking about the ideas in a group being able to get feedback and so on. After discussing some of the ideas we made some choices was we didn't want for our sequence which was dialogue and physical violence, two things that is hard to make something good of.

History of horror and its genre 1960 and forward

In the beginning of 1960 the movie psycho was produced by Alfred Hitchcock and also includes the famous shower scene. This lead to people being afraid of taking showers and being in bathrooms, a big explosion of screaming movies was also consequence of the film. This develops into what’s called “the golden age of horror” and many famous horror movies was produced during this time.

1968 a movie called “the night of the living dead” and this was one of the first horror movies that also developed the original zombie figure. This was also the age of independent low budget films which this movie was and they therefore made a lot of money. There were no longer as much supernatural things influencing the monsters they wanted to create a more believable view. The director wanted to go overbroad with this movie which also gave a lot of gore scenes and children turning against there parents and so on. One thing that was rare about this movie was that this movie had an Afro-American as the main character, this was something new and also got people talking about the movie. The director for this movie was also George A. Romero which also made a lot of good and famous movies, he also produced “the land of the death” another zombie movie in 2005.

Later in 1970 the movie the “Texas chainsaw massacre” was produced and was also presented as a true story. There was a man named Ed Gain that was an American murder. It was told he made furniture’s out of his victim’s skin and this was what triggered the production of the movie. So the audience was now convincing that this was an event that had happened in real life which showed to be an effective way of scaring the audience. After this more famous and well known movies was produced such as “the exorcist” “the Oman” and “shivers” which all had a quite large audience and fans.

Later in 1978 the movie Halloween was produced and later developed into a classic horror movie with many different versions. It convinced its audience that this could be a true event and had a big hit especially in the United States. The movie was baste on the director John Carpenter own experience and feeling about Halloween. This was the new age of slasher movies and influence a lot of other movies that later was produced.

Similarities between opening sequences

In class we have been talking much about opening sequences and the creation of them. Everyone in the class got to show on off there favourite scene and explain what they think about it and so on. There were a big mix between different scenes and a mix between both horror and thriller, some were really gore and some were just psychological but some were not really scary at all. What I mean is that some opening title sequences are not made to create to much tension more to reveal what the story line is about and to introduce the characters in the movie.

One opening scene that I really liked was the opening sequence for “Kill Bill” I wasn’t any titles in it so it was just an opening title sequences but you could easily make it as an title sequence. They used some good techniques such as black and white to show that it’s past time, close-ups to show the emotions and details well but also in the end of the sequence the man shoots the girl in the middle of an sentence which is a really unexpected move and a good way to surprise and scare the audience.

Link: Kill Bill opening scene

(Kill Bill opening scene)

One opening sequence that we look at was really looking like the opening scene of “The shinning” showing that after thirty years we still use the same methods. The movie is called the “crimson river” and when the opening title sequence begins they are following a car driving on country road while the titles are being shown, exactly the same as they do in the opening scene of the shinning. But you can at the same time see that there is a different between them seeing the time difference between the movies. The tiles are different and the positions of them, also the car shows that they take place in different decades.

I linked the both opening title sequences below for you to take a look for you self and see what you think about it.

Link: The crimson river opening title sequence

Link: The shinning opening title sequence

The history of horror and its genre

The history of horror and thrillers goes quite a long way back in time and it developed in small steps and is now what it is today.

It all began in 1925 when the Phantom of the opera was released and it was all classical but no sound and black and white. Later around 1929 the film Dracula was released which was made under a more cheaper production due to the wall street crises but still made a big success. Dracula was shown as more gracious and became more accepted among the population. Dracula was also one of the first horror movies with sound and was described as the new super horror film, which was much thanks to the supernatural and mystery in the movie.

A man to thank for the special effects and the good makeup was a man called “Lon Chaney”. He spend many hours of recreations ideas for the perfect look, he planed everything in detail and was very précis. He came up with different ideas such as turn up noses with the help of a string, a glass eye that was used in one of the movie which was actually put in front of a normal eye.

After Dracula a new movie was created shortly after and was released as Frankenstein which was played by a man called Boris Karloff. This created a big interest for horror movies but this movie was band in some states in America because of a child being thrown into a river. But after these specific films, Dracula and Frankenstein a new innovation of ideas started throughout the companies in the industry. And it was clear that monsters and special effects were the big thing and something that the audience craved for. There for also a movie called mystery of the wax museum which was produced in 1933 how also became a success.

Many of these films has been recreated both just some shortly years after but also modern versions. This shows how the classics actually have made an impact on the industry for example was there now a new release of the mystery of the wax museum a few years ago called the wax museum. So even though the industry is today filled with horrors and thrillers its actually the classics the most of us remember and is also influencing most of the movies made today.

The creation of title sequences

There is a range of different opening sequences out there in the big pile of movies and therefore there is also a lot of people working with creating just title sequences. I’m going to tell you about two famous title sequence creators that have had a big impact on media.

The first guy is named Kyle Cooper and is a modern designer and has done so many famous opening scenes, commercial clips and so on. This guy is amazing and really focus on the fact that it always action happening and in the end everything is often linked together. Kyle Cooper now has his own company called “prologue” which he started around 2003. The list above is just some of the famous works he have done
- Spider man 1&2
- Seven
- the incredible hulk
- superman returns
- The orphan

And much more is will give you guys a link with a video showing most of his famous work which is four minutes long. Kyle Cooper is described as having had a big impact on the industry and thanks to his success and great work his is being compared to a man named Saul Bass which is the other man I was intending on telling you about.
Link: Kyle Cooper and some of his work                     
(Picture of Kyle Cooper)

Saul Bass died in 1996 and is seen as a ledged in the industry and is best known of his animation of openings sequences. And has work with famous people such as Alfred Hitchcock and Stanley Kubrick and many others. This man has designed many logos for different companies such as continental airlines and A&T which are known worldwide.

Saul Bass had his breakthrough by doing the title sequence to “the man with the golden arm” and after that many of his works got famous worldwide. Some other work he has done is:
- Around the world in eighty days
-Psycho
- Ocean’s eleven

And many other there is a big list of movies which he has made the title sequence to and most of them you probably have seen.
(Picture Saul Bass)

Ghost Ship opening scene

This is one of my favorit opening scenes
Link: Ghost Ship opening scene
The film is a horror film that involves ghosts and myths and is also mysterious and was released. In the beginning it is all about what has happened on the ship years before so basically no one in the beginning are a important character except for the little girl how is later a ghost when we see her again.

One thing that is really important to this scene is the music, it really creates the mood of the whole beginning of the movie. They are using different kind of shots, in the beginning there is a helicopter shot to show the position and surroundings and the boat itself. After that there are different kinds of close-up and mid shots used. The camera is giving the little girl privileged of camera time showing that she is one of the important characters and there is even a point of view shot watching the man she is dancing with die.

I like this scene because of the totally unexpected things that is about to happened and that the atmosphere is very different from what you expect it to be in a horror movie. Everything is happy and calm and when then later everybody gets killed it is just really unsuspected.  But what I think is good is that you are in a way not waiting for the action it just comes right away.

This kind of scene would be hard to do with the equipment we have but detail shots and close-ups that there are using is techniques to remember. Also to remember is how important it is depending on which sound you are using and what it does to the audience.

Opening sequence

For next week I’m suppose to write about a opening scene of a horror or a thriller that I like. What I’m also is looking for is techniques that my group and I may have the possibility to imply in our opening scene. By looking through a couple of opening title scenes I realized what actually caches my interest in the different scenes and what I find most effective.

The first scene I looked at was the opening scene of “the shining”.
The opening title scene of the shinning was basic if you just look at what is shown in the scene; a car driving along the road and at the same time as the surroundings is shown. But I and my group could never do something like this. What I mean is that the whole opening scene is filmed from a helicopter which we don’t really have a possibility to use.

I didn’t really like this scene even though it was beautiful film because it really didn’t give anything away of the story not even a single character the only thing that is reviled is that time is passing by. The good thing about it is that it makes you curios of where the car is going but not really anything else.

Link: Opening scene, the shining

The next sequence I looked at was one of the ones that I really liked which was the opening scene of “seven”. It really sets you into this creepy mood and the music is one of the best used sounds I think. The sound starts off with this quite background music then small sound bridges of horrifying sounds are added. The graphics is also really well shown and it looks smooth and not disturbing the action and the graphics also likes like a child’s handwriting making it more creepy and realistic.

Through out the whole sequence they are only using extreme close-ups giving away a bit of the story but not anything of the character. This is a great and easy way to get a big impact on your audience and is something that I and my group could use when doing out project. Every little thing that is shown throughout the sequence are giving small clues about a person that is obsessed with different things and you also make a conclusion that he’s going to be the reason for any killings or action in the movie.  This really makes you stay and want to watch the whole movie and that is exactly what I think a opening sequence should be doing.

Link: Opening scene, seven

I looked through many other openings sequences from films as “dead mans shoes”, “twenty eight weeks later” and “final call” the very different from each other and used a lot of different teqniqes to learn from.

But the one I choose to tell about was the opening title scene from a movie called “Ghost ship”. I like this scene because of the totally unexpected things that is about to happened and that the atmosphere is very different from what you expect it to be. Everything is like happy and calm and when then later everybody gets killed it is a kind of chocking.  But what I think is good is that you are in a way not waiting for the action it just comes right away.

I also like that this is actually past time even though you don’t get that right away because after this there is a time difference of maybe teen-twenty years.

Even though they are using techniques as helicopter and so on the kind of close-up shots and shots showing details is great thing we could use for our opening scene. When watching for a great opening scene I’m looking for things that I think is scary but it’s also those kinds of things that make me interested in a movie like teasers, calm and relaxing and a lot of close-up and details shots. A more detailed analyze of ghost ship will also be published.
Link: Opening scen, Ghost ship

Horror and thriller board

By the red dividing line you can see the difference between the thriller and horror genre.
To explain thriller movies with pictures is not easy so I will link the trailer from disturbia which i think explains the thriller genre pretty well. Because a thriller can not be described by pictures with blod it is much more complicated. Thrillers are more about the physcological and reflect the reality quite well.

Link: Disturia trailer

Mood Board

To get a good idea for a thriller you can always start by taking your own fears.
I'm scared of a lot of things but her i some of them

-Conspiracy
-Broken bones

-Bones sticking out

-Tortures

-Claustrophobic

-Silence

-Old food and flies

-Flashback

- Weird eyes

Below is a good movie that i things contains many of the things i think is uncomfterbal to whatch.

Link: Frozen movie trailer

Another movie I think contais a lot of things like flashback, old food and so on is the movie a linked below
Link:Ghost Ship opening scene

Editing part 2

Today Tuesday we finished our editing in the preliminary task and we did a lot of things that made the scene look really good. We continued what we did the first lesson and was choosing which shots angles we were going to use and also ask the question why we should use that kind of shot and so on. We decided that we wanted the audience to side with the girls in the scene so in some of the sequence you could see her facial expressions while the other character was talking. To make our scene stand out more we also did a lot of different close-ups on small details that matters to the outcome of the story and effect audience. 

When we finished with the basic as editing different sequences and getting everything together we started playing around with the sound and sound effects. This was used in the same way as editing the picture sequences and we also added some small sound effect and blur in the background. We didn’t have the time to do any bigger changes in sound or sound effects but we got to know how it all work and our finished piece became what we had expected and we were all satisfied. 

When you are adding sound effects and playing around with sound you are creating a new bin called sound/sound bin. In this bin you will add sound effects from a program called final sound editing. In this program you can find all different kind of sound effects and what we wanted to do but didn’t have time to do was to make as if they were in a normal environment with people around them.

Prelim task video:

Editing part 1

I told you all bout the preliminary task we did on Friday so today Tuesday we were starting with the editing part of the shots.

So we learned that we save all of our files into something called a rush bin and this is where we keep all of our original files in case something would go wrong. So we look through the rush bin to decide what kinds of shots we needed and which ones that was useless which was a lot of fun. When you have chosen your different shots you want for the editing part you put them in a file called log bin if I don’t remind myself wrong. So then you move one taking you scenes/files from the log bin into the editing system.

The movie editing program we used where from apple and we also did all of our work on Mac. The program was a lot easier then I interrupted, I will try to describe how it looked like and also post a picture. We had two different screens one for viewing the original clip and one for watching the scenes we edited together so that you easier can see how the final result will be.

When we started using the files/scenes from the log bin we had to decide in which order we want the scenes to be and how we will cut them. Also when cutting together the different scenes it was important to also match the sound whit the image which wasn’t hard.. It was a lot of work and we did not get done during the one hour lesson.

We will continue editing this or next week so that our task will be a finished piece and of course I will update you.

All for now

Link: How you use the apple final cut program and introduction

Preliminary task

Hi everyone this Friday we did our preliminary task and we did a lot of filming and working with different techniques.  My group, Sophia, Richard, Courtney and I did all the different shots in one hour and teen minutes. This time it was much easier to understand what Adam (our teacher) had been talking about regarding the 180 degree rule, shoulder shot, wide shot and all that kind of things.

How the scene looks like:

1. Person B walks into a room coming trough a door
2. We then see person B waiting in the room for person A.
3. Dialogue takes place between the two
4. Person A then leaves the room and leaves person B.

The scene we were going to shot were about 4 minutes long and with different angles such as wide shot, shoulder shot, close-ups and pan shots. But when we were filming we as a group we could decide which kinds of techniques we wanted to use and decide in what way we wanted the viewers to be affected.

We did all the shots in wide shot seeing the actors whole body and face, to have a finished piece if time would run out. After that we did all the different shoulder shots so that we could get a better “view” in to the conversation that’s going on in the scene, this allows the viewer to feel like they are participating more in the conversation.  This went really well and we had the 180 degree role in the back of our minds all the time when we moved the camera. Later on we did the close-ups on details and facial expressions which contribute to more information and consumptions that the viewer can pick up from the scene.

The task was just to do these different shots and get it right (we also learned the film language better when we now where forced to use it, I mean like; standby, standing by, roll it, rolling and action). So editing and putting together the pieces was not a part of the task right now or today.

I think this task gave us big advantages of understanding the basics and it was a lot of fun doing it.

All for today

(Below is the pictures of the storyboarding)
                 

Starting on preliminary task

Today we started doing our introduction for our preliminary task, because we were suppose to be done with it for Friday. So we were split in to three groups and we were given a place to shoot our scene just to see how the camera works and so on. The scene we were supposed to do was a mixture between different types of shoots such as, long shoot, shoot from shoulder and close-up. 

Our teacher told us that we were suppose to shoot the whole scene in a long shot to begin with so that we have a finished piece and then you do the whole thing using the technique to shot behind the shoulder (shoulder shot). Last you do the close-up scenes and all the other details and extrem close ups.

Me and my group accidently broke the 180 degree rule and it was first then that i realiced how the 180 really works. It was also easier to realice how you use the camera and how to make different angles look good. So this was just the introduction to the task but we will do the real thing on Friday so we will see how it goes but I learned a lot today.

My favorite scene

Hi, I forgot to tell you about when i did my presentation about my favorite scene in a movie. I choose the departed, it is probably not the best film I watched but its good and not a film you figure out immediately while watching it. I’m posting a part of my script where I’m talking about the scene between, 00.25 until 00.40. I hope you enjoy and I will post the YouTube link as well.
The departed final scene

"A cut takes place and now there’s a new angle of the camera but it still a long shot showing the whole body of the actor and surrounding but at the same time the camera just broke the 180 degree role but not something you immediately notice. But now you are actually looking through the characters eyes by the way the camera is used. By Collins body language you can see that he’s surprised, you can see that he’s scanning the person that’s in front of him and realizes that it’s not something good. You seconds later get at a medium close-up on Dingnam to realize that he’s got a gun and protection clothes on which immediately lead us to the conclusion that he’s there to kill. The two characters is looking each other in the eyes which could mean pleading for your life or in Dingnams case it looks like he’s really furious and serious"

Horror, thriller and suspense films

The two past days we have watched opening scenes from films like Halloween, Friday 13^th and Don’t Look Now. We discussed what a thriller should include and what kind of varieties of suspense-thrillers there are. I’m going to post some of the links for the openings scenes. One of my favourit opening scenes was the beginning of Halloween (the first one) it is completely shoot in “pov” and the music and lightning is really good and has a really good build up of tension.

Thrillers are known to create different kinds of emotions such as, intense excitement, anticipation, expectation, anxiety and nerve racking tension. But to create these kinds of emotions a thriller has to include some criteria’s like, suspense, build up of tension, great sound elements and much more. To also be able to differentiate a thriller from a horror, a thriller is often less gore then a horror and reflects reality better. A thriller is often also quite clever and well-constructed and in a thriller the main point is often that an escape seems impossible and life itself is threatened, how ever it could be very difficult to tell if the film is a horror or a thriller.

The kind of different varieties of suspense-thriller we discussed was genres such as,
- action and adventure
- sci-fi
- crime-caper
- western
- film noir
- even romantic or comedy
So then this also gives you a perspective of how many different kind of thriller there are out there and how many different ideas you can come up to make a thriller.

Link: Opening scene Don't look now
What I like about the opening scene in Dont look now is that its really well filmed and edited. There's also a lot to comment in this movie thanks to the importance of every shot in the opeing scene and has a crusial mening to the film.

Video camera session

Today the whole class was in the editing studio with Matt and he taught us a lot about the cameras we are going to use this year when we are filming the movie. He first taught us some obvious things such as how to see how much battery you have left. He also showed us how to understand the time code so we know how much the camera has been filming.

Later he showed us how to use the zoom and the focus, Matt also sad that it was important to always zoom until you reached maximum capacity and focus and then zoom out a bit but it’s always important to use the focus and the zoom to actually see what you are filming.

Then Matt showed how to use different effects and explained everything further. He told us about that it’s actually 25 pictures per second that makes the elution of movement. He also showed us how to use the “exposer” which is a number on the display in the left corner. It could be like F2.2 and that number stands for what kind of light showed in the shoot. If the number is high it becomes darker and if it’s a low number it becomes brighter and you do this to find the right light and brightness in the shot.

Later he learned us all about shutter speed and how to set the color temperature.  By using the shutter speed you are either speeding up or slowing down the camera movement. So by racing up the number above 50 you can make movements more clear and not so blur when you’re shooting a scene. This is mostly used when you are doing a shoot with action, sports and cars. Then about how to set the color temperature, you use a button called “wht bal” and first you zoom in on something white, a paper, a wall or whatever in the area/scene you are going to film. By pushing the button you going to get the right color temperature whether you’re inside or outside.

Last but not least he told us to be professional about our film language, so before we start shooting a scene we should use specific words such as standby - rolling – action – cut, these words should be used by the person handling the camera and the actors should then repeat what the other person is saying.

All for now
29/9 -2010

Working with photoshop

Our first Photoshop lesson was with Mat and the first thing he taught us was that we always have to keep track of our layers. It’s often a layers problem if you cannot do some specific action or whatever it is you are doing, always ask yourself the question, what layer am I on?

Mat helped us very strategically to open a picture into Photoshop before we started editing and so on. After that he taught us about cutting and pasting different parts of the pictures, which was pretty simple. We later moved on with using four pictures and mixing them together by using different effects I used pictures from an old James Bond movie, I’m legend, Alice in wonderland and the expendables.

Some different effects he taught us was how to use different kinds of Blur filter, how to change from color to black and white in the picture. We also used different tools such as the clone tool (clone things, obviously) the heeling brush tool, different kinds of lasso tools and so on. He also taught us obvious things such as moving, enlarging and making the picture smaller and everything else you can imagine. We worked half an hour with everything and it went well.

Sorry but I didn’t save any of my pictures but I will put them out here next time we will do Photoshop and then it probably will be more advanced and also better results to show.

Blog introduction

Hi my name is Nina and I’m seventeen years old, I’m doing my first year in Hurtwood House and I’m a boarding student. I’m actually born in Sweden and I live there with my mom and dad. I was born on the 15 September 1993 and have gone ten years to school in Sweden before I came here. I watch alot of movies and I like many of them but mostly I watch series like Heroes, Two and a Half Men, How I Met your mother and so on.

This blog is going to be about my work I’m going to do in my media studies AS classes, you can easily follow what kind of projects we are up to right now and so on. During this year we are going to work with Photoshop, correcting videos, recording videos and everything else you can think about that involves the media subject. The main work right now will be a opening title sequence to a horror or thriller movie, we will record, correct, do sound effects and all that kind of stuff. I hope you as a reader will enjoy everything I will write here and I will do my best to keep it as interesting as possible.

Media studies introduction, in media studies we will do diffrent things such as doing all the stages in developing a opening tiltle sequence which includes the planning of the sequence, the filming of the sequence and also the final editing of the sequence. We will also go through what the diffrence between a thriller and a horror is, also what kind of diffrent geners there are as well. Now in the begining we are also going to look at diffrent opening title sequences to find out diffrent techniques and so on that could be used. Before shoting our own opening sequence we will be able to outline how to use diffrent techniques how to make the audience side with characters and vice versa.